My life is upside down, loving God. The order of the world is out of place and I can’t do anything to right it again. Oh, Lord, you know the pain in my heart at all times and you know why.....my child, my sweet Ava has left this world. How can it be that my beloved child is gone? The child I cared for with such concern in every illness, the one I held close to my heart and promised to take care of for a lifetime, is not here for me to care for anymore. It hurts deeply that I wasn’t able to protect this child I love with my whole being from a death that seems so unfair.

Let me feel calm. Let me breathe deeply. Be with me in this kind of deep and transformative pain. I now carry this darkness with me on my back and in my heart, always. It is my burden and my companion.

Lord, there is not a single minute of my life when this loss is not etched so keenly into my brain and heart, whether it is in the middle of a busy day or in those choking moments of grief in the solitary dark of night. Let me be grateful for every minute we had together. Let me treasure those memories and find joy in them.

Help me to deal with people better. They don’t know what to say. They stumble and look away when they see me. They pretend nothing has happened. I know they “don’t want to remind me” but they don’t understand it is with me always... always.

Teach me, Lord. Tell me what you want me to do with this. What am I supposed to learn from this kind of pain? What are you calling me to do?

Open my battered heart and lead me to comfort and peace. Only you can give me the peace I need. Let me feel your presence in my life.
Amen

my new normal

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.

Normal is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th...

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything anymore.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving "that night" continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.

Normal is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.

Normal is staring at every girl who is 2....and then every kid that would be her age now...Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

Normal is every happy event in your life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind, because of the hole in your heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were
an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in
someone's eyes at how awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has
become a part of your "normal."

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your childs's memory and their birthdays and survive these days. And trying to find the balloon that fit's the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special Ava loved (Dora, swinging, blowing bubbles, etc.). Thinking how she would love it, but how she is not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention her name.
Normal is making sure that others remember her.

Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. Nothing compares.
NOTHING.
Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare.

Normal is realizing you do cry everyday.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone but someone stricken with grief over the loss of their child.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for
God. "God may have done this because…"

I know Ava is in "Heaven," but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why a precious little girl was taken from this earth too soon is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did the laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two children or one child, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that Ava is gone.
And yet when you say you have one child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed the child who is no longer here.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours...and being mad at God fr taking your child.

Normal is knowing you will never get over this loss, not in a day nor a million years.

Normal is having therapists agree with you that you will never "really" get over the pain and that there is nothing they can do to help you because they know only bringing back your child back from the dead could possibly make it "better."

Normal is learning to lie to everyone you meet and telling them you are fine. You lie because it makes others uncomfortable if you cry. You've learned it's easier to lie to them than to tell them the truth that you still feel empty and it's probably never going to get any better -- ever.

And last of all...
Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to
feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal."

The above poem was originally written by Tara and Heath Carey after they lost their daughters Violet and Iris in 2002 when natural gas caused their apartment to explode....I liked it and just inserted Ava's name and took out some things I didn't like about it. 

any easier??

A question that I often get asked is “does it ever get any easier?” For me, the answer to this question is just no. It doesn't get easier...times doesn't heal when you lost a child. I would guess the bad days get farther apart...but they are still there and always will be. That's only a guess on my part. Everyday is a hard day...a bad day for us right now...everyday! 

It takes just one minute for your world to be torn apart. Just one minute. All of a sudden, everything that you once knew and believed in comes crashing down around you. The world all of a sudden seems like a dangerous and dark place. The utter shock, despair and disbelief is indescribable. I can not count the times I uttered the words “I just can't believe it” . 

I always imagined grief to consist of lots of crying and feelings of loss. While of course this is part of it, no one could have prepared me for the other feelings that go hand in hand:

Numbness – Sometimes, not being able to cry or feel anything at all.

Guilt – Why could I not protect my own baby? Could I have done something to change what happened?

Regret – Why did we get the surgery? What if we would have chosen not to do it? Would that have changed anything? 

Jealousy – Why me? Why us? Why our little girl? Why was our little girl the 1/33,000 chance of bleeding. 

Anger – At the whole world. How could it still be turning when my baby girl had died? and more to the point, how can a perfectly healthy little girl just die for no reason..at all?

Loneliness – There is nothing lonelier than grief. I am extremely lucky with the support I have received from family, friends , and community.  The truth is...no one can help. Although they feel pain too, no one can fully understand the depth or despair that is felt and how your life will never ever be the same again as a parent who a lost child, unless they have been through the same.

Re-living – re-living and feeling every moment as if it were happening again and again...over and over. 

Longing – For my sweet Ava. To hold her...kiss her...hug her...just HER! 

Longing – For the old me. The old carefree me that believed that everything always turned out ok in the end.The me who lived in a euphoric bliss of this life...so happy to have my baby girl Ava and another one on the way. Life couldn't get any better than that, right? 

These feelings are so intense. Time will never erase them. I know that and hopefully, one day I will accept that they are a part of me and always will be.